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The Spiritual Eye: What Is It; What It Looks Like; and How to See It

From Awaken to Superconsciousnessby Swami Kriyananda

The Spiritual Eye, shown in a painting by Swami Kriyananda

The spiritual eye is not imaginary. It is something one actually sees in meditation, when the thoughts are stilled, and when the intellect functions on its own higher, intuitive level. Many that I’ve met have told me they’d seen the spiritual eye in meditation, some of them long before they had any idea what it was. Some saw it even before they knew about the spiritual path.

When the spiritual eye is beheld clearly, it is a golden circle of light surrounding a field of deep blue. In the center of this blue field is a white star with five points. When the spiritual eye is beheld imperfectly, it is seen as a dim violet light with a faint circle around it, and an even fainter dot in the center.

Whether or not you behold the spiritual eye, by meditating at that point your consciousness will gradually rise until at last it passes the portals of human awareness and enters the state of ecstasy, or superconsciousness.

One problem people face is not knowing from what position, mentally, to approach that spiritual center. Lahiri Mahasaya, my guru’s spiritual grandfather (his guru’s guru), said to concentrate the attention first in the region of the medulla oblongata, and from that point to gaze toward the spiritual eye. People’s awareness of their egos is often distributed vaguely throughout the body. By centering it consciously in its true seat, the medulla, it becomes possible to direct ego-consciousness toward its own higher octave.

Once ego-consciousness has been dissolved in superconsciousness, the center of consciousness shifts naturally from the ego to the heart. At this point, intuitive feeling takes one’s consciousness upward through the spiritual eye and out into Infinity.

The desire for equality with others is a delusion; we are equal only in the fact that we are all children of God. Life, otherwise, is like a ladder.

The lower animals are helped upward in their evolution by association with human beings.

Relatively unaware people are helped upward by serving those who are more highly evolved. The caste system in India originally recognized these realities: It wasn’t hereditary, and was never intended to be suppressive. It simply indicated the right direction for humanity to develop—from body-bound (kayastha) to freedom from ego-bondage.

“One moment in the company of a saint,” it has been said, “will be your raft over the ocean of delusion.” The company of persons more highly evolved than oneself can be uplifting. In the case of the devotee who seeks God, saints are the best company. And best of all is it to be guided by a true guru.